The Spanish high court imprisoned an al-Qaeda leader for 27 years today after finding him guilty of conspiring with the team of hijackers that committed the September 11 attacks.

But the sentence, which came at the climax of the trial of 24 alleged al-Qaeda operatives in Madrid, was a mixed success for prosecutors. Three senior Spanish judges cleared Imad Yarkas of being an accomplice to murder, the most serious charge against him.

Yarkas and two other defendants, Driss Chebli and Ghasoub al Abrash Ghalyoun, were accused of conspiring to commit 2,973 murders on September 11, and faced prison sentences of 74,000 years each, but they were acquitted of those charges for lack of evidence.

Instead, Yarkas was jailed for 27 years on conspiracy charges and for heading a terrorist organization; Chebli was convicted for collaborating with a terrorist organization; and Ghalyoun was cleared of all charges. Of the remaining 21 people on trial, 16 were convicted for a range of terrorist-related offences, although none relating to 9/11.

The central accusation against Yarkas, who is Spanish but of Syrian origin, was that he organised a meeting in Spain in July 2001 at which Mohamed Atta and fellow hijacker Ramzi Binsalshibh met to decide last minute details, including the date of the 9/11 attacks.

Ghalyoun, who is also Syrian-born, was accused on the basis of video footage he shot of New York's landmarks while he was on holiday in the city. All charges against him were thrown out. "The lack of evidence to show the three suspects took part in such despicable murders, either as material participants... or as accomplices or harborers, is absolute," said the court's judgement.

Today's sentences, which ranged from six years to Yarkas's twenty-seven, came at the end of the longest and most elaborate of Europe's terrorism trials. Over 100 witnesses were called to give evidence during two-and-a-half months of proceedings in a special high-security courtroom on the outskirts of Madrid.

At his sentencing, Yarkas became the only person in the world with a standing conviction after being tried over 9/11.

In Germany, Mounir el Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 but acquitted last month in a retrial, although he was found guilty of belonging to a terrorist cell. The only person charged in America over September 11 is Zacarias Moussauoi, who pleaded guilty to being the twentieth hijacker in April but is yet to be sentenced.

Among those convicted today was Tayseer Alouni, a journalist for al-Jazeera, who was sentenced to seven years for collaborating with a terrorist group.

The Qatar-based satellite broadcaster denounced the sentencing of Alouni, who became well-known throughout the Arab world as the Kabul correspondent for al-Jazeera during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. Alouni interviewed Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11 attacks.

"We were all shocked because everyone expected Alouni to be freed. It is a regrettable event in the history of international journalism when a journalist who sought the truth becomes the accused," said Ahmed al-Sheikh, the al-Jazeera news editor.

September 26, 2005 MADRID, Spain – A suspected al-Qaeda cell leader was convicted Monday of conspiring to commit murder in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, concluding Europe's biggest trial of alleged members of the terrorist group.

Imad Yarkas, one of 24 defendants on trial, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for conspiracy and of being a leader of a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors had accused Yarkas, a 42-year-old Spaniard of Syrian origin, of the more serious charge of being an accomplice to murder and requested a jail term of nearly 75,000 years – 25 years for each of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the suicide airliner attacks in 2001.

Two other suspects were acquitted of charges of helping plot the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, although one of them was found guilty of collaborating with a terrorist organization.

Twenty-one others also stood trial, but on charges not directly related to Sept. 11. Of those, 16 were convicted of belonging to or collaborating with a terrorist organization and five were acquitted.

One of the 16 was Tayssir Alouny, a correspondent for the pan-Arab TV network Al-Jazeera. He was convicted of collaboration and sentenced to seven years in jail.

All 24 were expressionless as the verdicts were read in the National Court.

Yarkas had been charged with arranging a meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain in July 2001 at which key Sept. 11 plotters – alleged suicide pilot Mohamed Atta and plot coordinator Ramzi Binsalshibh – met to decide last-minute details, including the date of the massacre.

Another suspect, Moroccan Driss Chebli, was also alleged to have helped set up the meeting. He was acquitted of murder charges but convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group and sentenced to six years.

The third suspect facing specific Sept. 11 charges, Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, was acquitted. The Syrian-born Spaniard was indicted over detailed video he shot of the World Trade Center and other landmarks during a trip to several U.S. cities in 1997.

"The lack of evidence to show the three suspects took part in such despicable murders, either as material participants ... or as accomplices or harborers, is absolute," the 450-page sentencing report said.

"The only thing proven is Yarkas' conspiracy with the suicide terrorist" Atta and other members of the Hamburg, Germany-based cell that staged Sept. 11, it said.

Judge Baltasar Garzon had said the tapes were passed on to al-Qaeda and amounted to the genesis of planning for the attacks on the U.S. Ghalyoun said during the trial he shot the tapes as an innocent tourist.

Ghalyoun was also acquitted of charges of being a member of a terrorist organization.

Sep. 26, 2005 - A Syrian-born businessman was sentenced to 27 years in prison Monday after being convicted of leading a terrorist cell and conspiring to commit murder in the Sept. 11 attacks. He was cleared of a more serious charge in Europe's biggest trial of suspected al-Qaida members.

Another man accused of helping one of the hijackers set up a key meeting was acquitted of being an accessory to murder but was convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group. Sixteen other people were convicted of collaborating with or belonging to the terror cell.

A third suspect facing specific Sept. 11 charges over detailed video he shot of the World Trade Center and other U.S. landmarks was cleared of all charges.

The three main suspects Imad Yarkas, Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun and Driss Chebli had been charged as accessories to mass murder and could have faced sentences of more than 74,000 years each 25 for each of the 2,973 people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Prosecutor Pedro Rubira had asked for what he called "exemplary sentences" to show terror could be fought in court, not with Guantanamo-style detention camps.

Yarkas led a cell that raised money and recruited men for Osama bin Laden's terror group and "turned itself over completely to fulfilling the sinister designs decided by al-Qaida," according to the three-judge panel of the National Court.

But it said, "the only thing proven is Yarkas' conspiracy with the suicide terrorist" Mohamed Atta and other members of the al-Qaida cell based in Hamburg, Germany that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.

Twenty-one other people also stood trial but on charges not directly related to Sept. 11. Of those, 16 were convicted of belonging to or collaborating with a terrorist organization and five were acquitted.

One of the 16 was Tayssir Alouni, a correspondent for the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera. He was convicted of collaboration and sentenced to seven years in jail.

"It was a black day in the history of Spanish justice," Al-Jazeera news editor Ahmed al-Sheik said, adding that the verdict would be appealed.

Yarkas' lawyer, Jacobo Teijelo, also said it was "absurd" for the judges to convict his client of conspiracy because that charge would apply to a crime that was not committed.

He said the judges, acting on what he called flimsy evidence such as wiretapped telephone conversations that they themselves said were at times obtained improperly, were desperate for some kind of conviction against Yarkas, given their lack of evidence for a murder conviction.

But he said he was leaning against filing an appeal because it might be futile.

Jose Luis San Pio, whose 26-year-old daughter Silvia was the only Spaniard killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, called the verdict a "surprise," saying he had expected harsher sentences.

The verdicts capped a 10-year investigation into Islamic militancy in Spain. After the attacks in 2001, Spanish police suspected many men they had been monitoring were involved. Judge Baltasar Garzon started making arrests two months after the attacks.

Investigators say al-Qaida had deep roots in Spain and had operated freely in a country where poorly equipped police were focused more on the armed Basque separatist group ETA.

But al-Qaida's presence became painfully clear when their own country became a target with the March 11, 2004, bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and were claimed by militants who said they acted on the terror group's behalf in revenge for the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq.

The probe into the Madrid attack was separate from the one that led to Monday's verdicts, but investigators said the suspects overlap, with Yarkas having acted as mentor to some of those blamed for the Madrid bombings.

Yarkas had been accused of arranging a meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain in July 2001 at which key Sept. 11 plotters Atta and alleged coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh met to decide last-minute details, including the date of the attacks.

Chebli, a Moroccan, also was alleged to have helped set up the meeting. He was acquitted of murder but convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group and sentenced to six years.

Ghalyoun, a Syrian-born Spaniard who was indicted over the video he shot during a trip to New York and several other U.S. cities in 1997, was acquitted of being an accessory to murder and of being a member of a terrorist organization.

Garzon had said the videotapes were passed on to al-Qaida and amounted to the beginning of planning for the attacks on the U.S. Ghalyoun said he shot the tapes as an innocent tourist.

The lesser sentence was the latest setback for European prosecutors trying Sept. 11-linked cases.

In Germany, Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 but acquitted last month in a retrial, although he was found guilty of belonging to a terror cell.

Judges in the German case complained they had been denied usable testimony from key Sept. 11 suspects in U.S. custody, and Spanish prosecutors faced a similar dilemma. They say U.S. officials rejected their request to question Binalshibh, who is in U.S. hands and was key to the Spanish investigation.

The only person charged in the United States over Sept. 11, Zacarias Moussaoui, pleaded guilty in April.